Weekly Reflection – Too Many to Imagine So Imagine One

This past week, numbers of deaths too many to imagine were cited in two very different news stories. One is the current and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our nation has passed the tragic milestone of over 160,000 deaths with no end in sight. A number that big becomes almost abstract until we know people or hear the stories of people whose lives ended because of the virus. When we dare to be open enough to take in the pain of individual lives lost, the human toal becomes real. Then each one matters, and finding a way to lessen and finally end the pandemic becomes urgent.

The other story that featured massive numbers of deaths was the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombs dropped by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9). Around 140,000 in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki are estimated to have died in the immediate explosions, and thousands more in both cities died from their wounds and/or radiation poisoning in the following months and years. For most of us, those numbers are especially abstract because the Japanese were our enemies. Historians continue to debate whether or not those bombings were necessary to end the war. In any case as followers of Jesus, it is important to recognize the humanity of each person made in the image of God. The 75th anniversary of the only atomic bombings is not a time for celebration or justification. Rather it is an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the non-violent way of Jesus and working for peaceful alternatives to war. Twenty two years after the atomic bombings, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said the following words in opposing war in general and the Viet Nam war in particular. I believe that these words represent a meaningful way to reflect on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings as well as to challenge us to continue the commitment to peace and justice today. When the numbers get too big to imagine, remember that each one is made in the image of God.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.